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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29442579">Hush Little Baby</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz'>GraceEliz</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Eldritch Collection [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Baby Boba Fett, Force Bonds, Gen, Parasitic Force Bonds, Rated M for Themes, the Themes include mind control and force suggestions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:40:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,666</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29442579</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“How did you do it?”<br/>“With the bond,” she whispers, tipping her head to look at him warily. “I pulled until you came back, gave you some of my life to make it stick. I don’t know what happened, it feels all different, I don’t understand it.”<br/>“Shhh,” Fox croons, and she does, rapidly quieting. He pulls her up into his lap, wrapping her cloak around her. “Sleep, ad’ika.”<br/>-<br/>Can a wrongness be cured, if it cannot even be felt?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Eldritch Collection [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992514</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>New SW Canon Server Works</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Away I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Ace, who brought the parasitic force bonds idea to me knowing I would be unable to leave it alone, and then came up with the idea for a first batch of test CTs. I think Two is mine, but hell if I know who comes up with the ideas anymore.<br/><b>Summertime - George Gershwin</b><br/><i>Summertime<br/>And the livin' is easy<br/>Fish are jumpin'<br/>And the cotton is high<br/>Oh, your daddy's rich<br/>And your ma is good lookin'<br/>So hush, little baby<br/>Don't you cry</i></p><p> <br/><i>One of these mornings<br/>You're going to rise up singing<br/>Then you'll spread your wings<br/>And you'll take the sky<br/>But 'til that morning<br/>There's a'nothing can harm you<br/>With daddy and mammy standing by</i><br/></p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The First Batch face their greatest challenge yet - and Sal has a not-great feeling about this.<br/>Content Warning: character death.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Doc is here too, bouncing on his feet and clapping his hands together. Everyone’s breath is fogging in the cold air, except Prime and Skirata who are in full beskar’gam. Irritated, Sal pulls his scarf up over his face until only his eyes shine between his hat and the top of his scarf. Across from him, Ret, Resol and Ip have done the same thing, Ip’s blue eyes glittering against the reflected light.</p><p>“Repeat the mission back to me,” orders Prime.</p><p>They all do, in unison of course as they do everything still: “stay alive for three nights then signal for a pickup.”</p><p>The Prime grunts, his buy’ce tilting into the sun. “Okay. Stay alive.” Then he turns on his heel and marches away, Doc right behind him and grouching quietly. As they all expected, Skirata only grunts at them before walking off in the other two’s wake. He only cares about his Nulls.</p><p>With them out of sight, they’re suddenly just a squad of children on an icy planet, and Sal is, unexpectedly, afraid. He tucks his hands deeper into his pockets and plucks gently at Nines to ask what to do next.</p><p>“Shelter first,” Nines says, words carried away by the wind, and they all turn as one towards the nearby hills. They are all of the same opinion.</p><p>Sal slips into place beside Ip and Grays. “Reckon we’ll make it?”</p><p>“Ret,” grunts Ip in response. He’s very quiet, but in a different way to Sal, or to Havoc. Out of them all, Havoc most enjoys fading into the background, plucking away to voice approval or displeasure. Ip is just grumpy.</p><p>The cold of the air bites at their skin, gnawing their ears almost as fiercely as the beasts which roam these forests would. Wind whistles in the trees and ice-rock formations, leaving them all shaking their heads as if the noise can be shaken off. Up in front, ’67 tips his head to the side, drops his hood. The snow makes his white hair look like his head is missing half his skin. Sal snorts, but Nines raises a hand for them to stop.</p><p>Ip sighs, hunching up in his coat.</p><p>“What is it?” Resol asks.</p><p>“I think there’s a cave here,” answers ’67, tugging his hood back up over snowed curls.</p><p>Resol turns around a few times, trying to see whatever it is that their brother can. As far as they can tell, there’s just snow and rocks and dead trees. “How can you tell?”</p><p>With a shrug ’67 starts walking, eyes fixed on the ground. “Can see it.”</p><p>The three of them at the back share a look, but Ret and Resol seem to be of the opinion that ’67 must be right, and Havoc is trudging along behind them. If it’ll get them free of the stinging wind, then following whatever it is ’67 knows is worth a try. He’s oozing concentration, unsaid confidence in his own senses.</p><p>Sal grumbles under his breath, kicking out at the sensations of his brothers in his head, everyone muted and sulking in the cold. He senses rather than sees Ip twist his lip into a sneer, the shiver racking his body. Somehow, Ip has always felt the cold much more strongly than everyone else in their batch, even when they were little. He used to take Grays’ blankets. In fact, Sal squints against a flurry of snow, that’s definitely Grays’ scarf Ip is wrapping around his face.</p><p>“I’m freezing,” he rumbles.</p><p>“Well, you’re wearing enough,” Nines snips back. All of them are impatient, and tired, and miserable in the frost, shutting each other out in bitterness. Even Keeli, usually very friendly, is closing off and wrapped up in his own arms.</p><p>It worries Sal, and he feels the worry from Resol too, that out of them all it is Ip whose shields are shuddering with each buffet of wind rushing down from the mountain, each rush of cold air rising up the valley making his mental presence shrivel a bit further. “Ip?”</p><p>“I’m fine,” his brother says through chattering teeth. Sal responds with doubt, and his brother glares, eyes as blue and miserable as the ice crusting the trees.</p><p>Resol finally has had enough. “’67! Where is this cave? We need to rest.”</p><p>There’s a pause, in which 67’s mind-presence is a bit uncertain, before he crouches down. “It’s here. We need to break through.”</p><p>Grays leaves Ip’s side to examine the opening. “It’s a sheet of ice, but it has to be half a foot thick,” he says, shivering a bit. His voice is raspy, which is probably because Ip is wearing his scarf. “I don’t know how we can break this.”</p><p>“Well, we need to,” Resol instructs firmly. Nines hisses. “Ip is getting sick.”</p><p>From Ip comes a pulse of irritation, ignored by everyone. They all know each other too well to take Ip at face value, with his sneers and scowls and hard, unnatural eyes which burn from within in ways that ‘67’s just don’t.</p><p>Grays takes a few steps back from the ice-sheet and takes off his pack. “Hold this,” he says to Nines, who takes it with a dubious lift of his eyebrows, and before they rest of them have chance to offer up a better idea he’s scrambling up the nearest tree.</p><p>The noise the ice makes as it shatters is very nearly drowned out by Grays’ shriek as he disappears.</p><p>“Goddamnit, Grays,” mutters ’67. Behind them, Keeli sighs hard enough that they all feel his part of the mind-bond expand then deflate.</p><p>Ip huffs. “Are we going down there or not.”</p><p>Their leader rolls his eyes so hard the brown irises almost disappear under his brows. His annoyance is made quite, quite clear.</p><p>“Just move already,” grumbles their shivering brother with an elbow to Sal’s side. He ducks down, peering into the revealed cave. “Grays? You dead?”</p><p>“Not yet,” calls Grays from below. Resol crouches over Ip, sheltering him as best they can with their back to the wind knifing off the mountainside. With gentle hands they guide Ip down to Grays’ reaching grasp, and Sal hands their packs down after him. Resol hops down next, light-footed and intense as ever.</p><p>Ip’s shuddering seems to have eased up, and Sal breathes out in relief.</p><p>“I still don’t think we need to stop,” mutters Nines even though everyone’s breath turns to mist in the air and their coats are beginning to crust up with ice crystals, sparkling in the moonlight. Sal doesn’t even bother to grace that with a response. Anyone who is willing to endanger the squad deserves to be overridden and ignored into compliance, frankly.</p><p>“At least let’s rest the night, until dawn,” Ret bargains, supporting Havoc as he drops down next. “We won’t accomplish anything frozen to death, or breaking into pieces, or bickering and separating.”</p><p>The mind-bond trembles, but Nines finally concedes. Keeli pushes him in the back, and he steps down the hole. After a few more minutes they’re all tucked down inside the cave, the edges of it receding into the darkness beyond the reach of their modified eyes.</p><p>Resol and Ret are standing either side of Ip, whose eyes are the only ones Sal can see in the low light. They burn, distant and sparkling like stars or hyperspace, or the rare sunlight reaching down to the Kaminii waves. “I’m not as cold now,” Ip says. “Thanks for asking.”</p><p>A ripple of laughter passes through them, reluctant but honest. Ip, in all his grumpiness, is often unknowingly hilarious. He does seem less uncomfortable, in the bond, a bit looser, less shrunken in on himself.</p><p>“Come on. Let’s bunk here, near the hole. We need to be able to get back out when it gets light,” orders Ret.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When Sal wakes up it is because he is cold, on the side where Resol had lain. There is no sign of him, or of Ip. Ret still sleeps, curled full-body against Keeli, who has Havoc on his other side. Nines and Grays are also curled into each other and sleeping, Nines’ breath fogging up on Grays’ collar. Careful not to dislodge the carefully constructed nest of packs and blankets, he slides out to his feet, shivering at the cold air before his body heats up enough to compensate the chill.</p><p>“Sal.”</p><p>He follows Resol’s voice, to the circle of lesser darkness below the hole in the ice. They are there, crouched over Ip, who is curled up but his face is lifted up to the darkness. His eyes, usually so fierce, are blankly blue, one pupil blown wide, the other a pinprick, and face so slack he looks like nothing more than a first stage-cadet.</p><p>“Ip?”</p><p>Resol runs their hand over Ip’s hair, trembling, and down the bond – cold, and dark, and empty where Ip’s heat should be – he is raging, screaming. “He’s dead, Sal.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Kamino I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>During drills and practices, and sometimes even their rest time such as it is, The Doc stands above and watches them. He is human, and has skin of a similar tone to buir but his face is a bit different in ways Sixty-Seven can’t quite articulate. In his arms is one of the babies. The real babies, not an advanced baby, not like them. Breakable and bruisable, the Doc had told them, and refused to let them even say hello. It is probably Boba, who is the Prime’s favourite, the one he wanted to raise as his own. The other baby doesn’t have a name. Doc calls it Two (’67 thinks Boba must be one. Or maybe three, and Prime is one) and often carries it around as he observes their progress. Maybe it’s for development; they all know that they are allowed physical contact because it is beneficial for their development. Now, ’67 doesn’t entirely understand why they’re allowed to know that, but sometimes Doc is unexpectedly kind, and he is the one carrying Two.</p><p>He brings Boba and Two into the room with him, sometimes, cradled at his waist in one of those slings. What had Prime called it? Brikad, or something like that.</p><p>Nines goes down and Sixty-Seven runs over to help him up. They have to survive all levels of training, and Ip is gone so it’s them two and their anticipation for their Jedi whom they might one day earn. Possessiveness, Doc had told them, was expected – after all, Prime has his possessive streaks, even over them, not that he admits it.</p><p>Maybe tomorrow, if they’re all good, they’ll get to see both Boba and Two during their check-ups, and the Doc will let whoever did best in the dexterity challenges go over and gentlygentlygently stroke down tiny noses and over tight curls, baby-soft.</p><p>Maybe if they’re all good they get to stay out of the pods, as well as see their baby brothers.</p><p>’67 and Nines reach the end of the course, where some of their other brothers are waiting – Keeli is wheezing and trying to hide it, rasping through his damaged throat. He never did recover from the lesson Wau had taught them that time. Up above, Doc raps at the glass; as one they look up to him, seven heads tilted in synchronisation that has cost a fortune.</p><p><em>Wait there,</em> he signs, then in dadita, <em>I-bringing-Two-Boba. </em></p><p>“Boba,” breathes Nines in excitement, but ’67 just huffs. The babies are okay, he supposes, small and sweet and entrancing and too young to be anything but adorably grumpy, but he wants to be able to actually do things with them. Doc never lets the babies do things around them.</p><p>Apparently first-batch CTs are too volatile, or something. Maybe the babies were just expensive. Maybe Doc is under orders not to let them interact with Boba, that seems like something Prime would do. He’s kind to Boba, but they’re only Clones and he doesn’t care about them. Resol thinks it’s because if Prime was to accept them as people, he’d have to accept that he’s become dar’manda, and he can’t handle it.</p><p>The door swishes open to let Doc in, and they all snap to attention. He scoffs, eyeing them up with that dark criticism they’re all so well accustomed to. Sometimes ’67 thinks if Doc wasn’t sneering at someone, it’d be a sure sign of terminal sickness.</p><p>Nines allows his fingers to twitch. For some reason, even though Doc never does anything purposefully to hurt them, not like some of the trainers do, something about the old man puts Nines’ hackles up.</p><p>“You have all done well. I am extremely impressed. You have earned a reward,” Doc tells them, with a sharp grin. In his arms Two warbles, gently waving a tiny clenched fist in the air. With his surgeon’s delicacy – almost approaching tenderness – Doc catches Two’s little hand on his smallest finger.</p><p>Ever their leader, Nines straightens his posture. “What is that to be, Doc?” he asks warily. Keeping himself solid, ’67 lines himself up behind Nines, where he belongs, keeping his brother’s back.</p><p>The Doc bobs Two ever so slightly. “Fett and I have a job, and I need Two and Boba watched over. The Kaminiise have no idea how to hold a child,” says the Doc with slight sneer. Privately, ’67 doesn’t think anyone on this planet is qualified – except possibly Prime, but again, he’s Prime, so it’s a net-zero benefit there – to be the carer of a child.</p><p>“So what do you want us to do, Doc?”</p><p>Doc looks down at Two, who croons up at him. “I want you to look after Two and Boba, boys,” he instructs, finally looking up at them. He beckons Nines closer, hands the baby over. Sal steps forwards to take Two’s care bag, which they’ve seen or carried a few times but never actually had purpose to need. “Read everything I have left you. His food is in the usual fridge and labelled. One of you is to come collect Boba,” he instructs, but Keeli raises his hand before he can talk himself out of breath.</p><p>“I’ll come for Boba.”</p><p>After a brief pause, the Doc nods, and they head off. ’67 notes that Doc does not look back.</p><p>“We can’t look after a kid, let alone both of them,” says Nines into the silence that grows in their wake. His voice is somewhere between incredulous and trembling.</p><p>Sal turns around slowly to face their usual leader, one eyebrow raised dramatically, satchel slung over his left shoulder. The greatest thing about Sal, in ‘67’s quiet opinion, is that he never has to say anything to convey exactly what he thinks of the bullshit of the day.</p><p>Nines bristles, cradling Two into his chest as though he can use the baby like a shield. “Well, I am not wrong,” he insists, and ’67 twists his lips into a pout in an attempt to make Nines at least give it a try. Both babies are unbearably cute.</p><p>“We can,” says Grays. When Nines looks incredulously up at him over Two, he just shrugs. “If Doc says we can do something, we can, right? So we can take care of Two and Boba for a bit.”</p><p>Angry, but trying not to move enough to upset the tiny form of Two against his chest, his best brother turns to Grays. “No, we can’t,” he insists, and ’67 realises that Nines is afraid. He is afraid of breaking the babies, of being the one to finally break the vow never to hurt them.</p><p>Grays and Sal share one of the looks that has always signalled their stubbornness, their determination to succeed. “We can,” they say in unison, and Ret nods, takes their side. Incensed, Nines turns to ’67 with a pleading pout, but…</p><p>The babies are just so precious and adorable and absolutely perfect. “We can do it,” he says quietly, and Nines hands him Two and storms out of the room. He takes a deep breath. “Hey, Two. We’re gonna have fun, right?” Resol is the only brother who has said nothing at all, and he turns to them, Two’s soft breath on his neck so delicate and tender.</p><p>“I’d better go tell the CCs,” says Resol, and they smile down at the baby tenderly as they run a thick finger down that tiny arm. “Behave,” they warn the rest of them, and then Resol leaves.</p><p>’67 feels bad he didn’t think about telling the CCs, but Resol will be better at it anyway. They’re much more eloquent than the rest of the batch.</p><p>“Can I hold Two?” Sal asks.</p><p>“No."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Kamino II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>‘67’s favourite CC is the one who gets called Cody. He is brave and strong and always willing to just spin-kick anyone and anything in the face, and ’67 is loving it. At his side, Nines is cackling, watching the two most likely to bite grapple with each other, faces twisted into snarls. “I think they’re more violent than we are,” he says between gasps.</p><p>“Yeah,” agrees ’67, watching Cody closely as he takes down the gentlest of their batch, the one they’d started calling Bly. In his arms, Two whines, high and needy, and so they reluctantly turn away from the viewing-window and head down the hall to find Two his next meal. Doc, who must trust them at least a little bit, has left them a care plan detailed enough that Sal had been convinced it was a joke.</p><p>Ret had replied that Doc can’t tell jokes that don’t revolve around obscure biology, and that Doc possibly really was that paranoid about Two and Boba’s care – and anyway, he’d added with Boba tucked against his chest just as the video had instructed,  CCs are not allowed to hold the babies, and so they have to be perfect at it. It isn’t like there is anyone they can ask, really. The Nulls are solid enough that their carers never needed to be this sensitive, and even the Alphas are grown up enough that even the CTs wouldn’t be able to hurt them much. Nobody really cares about the clones except themselves.</p><p>Maybe the CCs would be willing to help, but none of the seven remaining Firsts want to risk putting their tiniest brothers in their care, although one of the snarly-biting ones will spend whole shifts lying beside them and just watching, very still and quiet. That one, ten-ten, really likes Two and Boba.</p><p>Boba whines, nuzzles his head into his brother’s chest, and within moments Two starts to cry. “Please don’t,” begs Nines, “come on Two, calm it down. We’re going for food! You like that, right?” Neither of the babies react much, but Nines hands over Boba and takes Two into his own arms, and by time they’re in the hall leading to the kitchen they’ve petered off into soft burbles, tiny fists waving.</p><p>“Thank gods,” mutters ’67 even as his whole body softens in response to Boba’s nuzzling. “I guess we should set up a feeding schedule.” He lets the baby cling to his finger, and grins when Boba tugs his finger into his mouth and starts sucking at it.</p><p>His brother snorts, Two finally quiet in his arms. “Yeah, you think? And you shouldn’t let him bond to you that hard, they’re not ours.”</p><p>’67 shakes his head. “I don’t care.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Away II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>“We don’t need to stop,” grits Nines, taking a slow breath.</p>
<p>Resol’s scent changes, their presence in ‘67’s mind tightening up. Something is about to change. “Like we didn’t need to stop when Ip died?”</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This time, they’re on a desert plain. For a squad of fully grown and armoured soldiers, ’67 thinks they’re blending in alright to the surrounding white dunes. Admittedly, they’re on a survival trek, not a hunt, so being seen isn’t one of their problems tonight. No, their biggest problem is whatever upheaval is incoming. For months now their two leaders have been snipping at each other, picking and tormenting to the point the rest of the batch is utterly sick of it. Nines bares all his teeth. “I said no.”</p>
<p>Angry, but trying to hide it in their scent, Resol sneers in response. Their fingers are curved into claws like a strill, and they lean right into Nines’ face. ’67 must admit that he’d not expected such an upheaval as this, but he supposes it makes sense. Why else would Doc have taught them about wolves and aiwhas and strills, about pack dynamics in predator species, unless he thought they would need it?</p>
<p>“We don’t need to stop,” Nines insists fiercely.</p>
<p>Resol rolls their eyes, exasperated. “Ret is suffering, Nines! Do you want to force him to keep moving? We are all exhausted, this place is safe enough.” They throw their arms up, anger becoming movement. “But you don’t care about us, you only care about the mission.”</p>
<p>Even ’67 winces at that, and Grays lets out a low whistle between his teeth. Their brother treats them to a harsh dark glare before he turns back to Resol and their challenge. He can smell it, in the air, hanging between the two of them. Something deep and harsh.</p>
<p>“We don’t need to stop,” grits Nines, taking a slow breath.</p>
<p>Resol’s scent changes, their presence in ‘67’s mind tightening up. Something is about to change. “Like we didn’t need to stop when Ip died?”</p>
<p>The mind-link wobbles before every single one of them slam the bonds tight-shut. No part of the anger-grief on Resol’s face alters, but Nines takes a full step backwards, mouth slacking with shock. In the side of all their minds is the icy block that used to be Ip. Not a single one of them so much as twitches in the heavy silence which is weighted as though with the weight of the Prime’s sins.</p>
<p>“You were the one who claimed leadership on that mission, Nines. It was you, not me, who insisted we could make it, and so it is you who bears responsibility for Ip. We told you we needed to stop, and you were not listening! You never listen,” they snarl, eyes burning with rage. Their chest heaves with great sobbing breaths, fingers twitching, brows drawn low.</p>
<p>Down the bond, Grays pulses caution. All of them know how fast this could end in death. After all, as Doc had muttered, the Nulls had learned cruelty not from Prime or Skirata but from their tutor-brothers. From Sal he can feel absolutely nothing, all his sarcasm and caution and self-control locked out tight in shields which feel like water and waves, deep and endless. Even Keeli, who usually is fairly open to ’67, is a blank wall in their minds, white and clean and untouchable.</p>
<p>Nines squares his shoulders, raises his fists.  “Come at me, then, if you think you deserve to.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I will,” hisses Resol.</p>
<p>The rest of them scramble backwards, bursting into full sprints as Nines screeches and Resol roars, hurling themselves down the opposite ridge out of the potential blast zone as their two siblings hurl themselves together like clashing gods. “If we go home one short, Doc will kill us,” Ret says.</p>
<p>From Sal comes a brief surge of disgust. “It isn’t Doc who’ll want us dead.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Doc is furious. He waits on the ramp of the ship, glaring, with Two sat at his side. None of them say anything; they don’t really have anything to say to defend themselves. He’d warned them not to get distracted by internal conflicts on their missions, and now they’ve got Nines and Resol bruised and still oozing blood from their noses and lips, limping at the rear. ’67 glances at Grays, who shakes his head minutely.</p>
<p>“Hi,” says Two. “Are Nines and Resol okay?”</p>
<p>“We’re fine,” Resol croaks. “Just an argument.”</p>
<p>Two nods his tiny head, curls bobbing. Doc pinches his shirt between two fingers, signalling him back inside the ship. He always finds it so strange, watching Doc prod Two with gentle fingers or Two tug Doc around the same way he’d try and drag them, all the while knowing Doc wouldn’t hesitate to dissect any of them (except probably Two, he does like Two).</p>
<p>For a minute after their little brother’s departure their sort-of-buir just stares at them. “I hadn’t wanted to come to this, but I don’t own you so I can’t stop it. They’re going to tattoo your code numbers onto your wrists when we get home.”</p>
<p>Each of them erupts into anger in the mind bonds. “But it’s our skin, they can’t do that,” Keeli rasps. He rubs his throat, frowning, and the Doc hands him a water bottle.</p>
<p>“Yes, they can,” sighs Doc. “Get in the ship. We’ll talk about this on the way home.”</p>
<p>“Yes, Doc,” they all chorus. One at a time they troop past him onto the ship, setting their packs into the racks and strapping in. Sal pings out a tinge of regret, to which ’67 and Grays react with simultaneous irritation. Doc isn’t their buir, they don’t answer to him – they will answer to their Jedi, one day, and until then they’re their own people. Still, though. He’s still their Doc, and that’s almost like being a buir, and having him so disappointed is stinging, somehow.</p>
<p>’67 pulls at the bonds until he gets a reaction from both Nines and Resol. Don’t you dare allow any of us to be hurt because of your feuding over the pack, he hisses.</p>
<p>They respond with grim understanding. Out of everyone, Nines and Resol understand what is at risk for them, how much they could lose if the scientists decide they’re too dangerous or uncontrolled. There are worse things waiting for them than mere death. All of them stay silent as they watch Doc take a last swig of his water then stand up, silhouetted against the golds and yellows of the setting sun like a shadow. He pushes the button to close the ramp, then climbs up to the cockpit without talking to them.</p>
<p>Nice going, di’kut’e, Ret grouses.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Kamino III</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>He buries his fingers in his brother’s reddish hair, chewing on his other hand. Fox takes his hand away from his teeth, thumb rubbing at the red place his teeth had been. “Nines is sick. You need to help him, the Sense says so.”</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Something wakes him up in the middle of the night. It’s like a cramp, but less <em>there</em>. It must be the Sense, the one that lets him know what he should do: the same sense that cries out or purrs in turns, the sense that draws him to Tubies whose lives flitter like ocean-droplets, or to Fox, or other vod’e who also have the Sense. Nobody has the Sense like he does. Sometimes, the older brothers do things he doesn’t want them to, because they don’t feel things like he can and he’s only six so he can’t tell them what to do. Careful not to disturb Boba, curled against his side, he sneaks out of bed and uses his Sense to open the door. He heads down the halls, being quiet-quiet like Nines and Jan’buir always trying to teach them to be, following the soft draw of it.</p><p>Down the halls and through the halls and through the tunnel where rain and ocean-water runs always, filling his ears with the sound of rain. He keeps walking, tiring, but the Sense backs him up, strengthening his joints and muscles.</p><p>Finally, he arrives at the right hall. This is where the CCs live, and they live in rooms of ten. The Sense opens the right door, too, silently in the dark, and Two crawls over to his favourite CC and tugs at his hand hanging off the bunk almost to the floor, but Fox doesn’t move. Two trusts the Sense as much as he does Nines and Fox and Boba, and it’s telling him to wake his brother up. “Up,” he whispers, <em>tug-tug-tugging</em>, and Fox stirs slowly. He pushes more of the Sense into the word, tries again. “Wake up, Fox!”</p><p>“Two?” His brother sits slowly up and rubs his eyes. “Two, what are you doing here?”</p><p>In the bunk above Cody grumbles. “Take’m back, ‘fore Doc notices,” he orders sleepily, but Two ignores him in favour of yanking at his favourite brother’s hand again. His Fox is gentle and strong and can help Nines; the Sense says so and is roiling in his stomach.</p><p>Nines is dying and there is nothing that Two can do about it, but Fox can. He’s the sneakiest brother he has, he can always sneak in to visit them when Doc and buir aren’t around. If anyone has any idea how to fix Nines, it’s going to be Fox. The Sense loves him, even though Fox doesn’t know it.</p><p>“Come on, Fox,” he tries again. His hand wraps around two of Fox’s fingers and he leans back, hard as he can even though he knows he can’t move any of his older brothers unless they want him to.</p><p>Pretending to be cross – because the Sense knows how Fox is feeling, and he is sleepy and concerned but not angry – his brother leans down and picks him up, striding quickly out of the bunkroom. They walk quietly, silently even, until they’re under the water-tunnel, and Fox asks why he came to him.</p><p>He buries his fingers in his brother’s reddish hair, chewing on his other hand. Fox takes his hand away from his teeth, thumb rubbing at the red place his teeth had been. “Nines is sick. You need to help him, the Sense says so.”</p><p>Fox frowns, but he speeds up, emitting a stronger concern into the Sense. It coils around him in spirals under the protectiveness and over the anger. His Fox is always angry – but he’s never angry when he’s with Colt. Nobody can be angry with Colt nearby, because the Sense loves Colt too, but in a different way to Fox. “I hope the Sense is right,” Fox whispers, tucking Two’s head into his neck. Two nuzzles in, breathing him in, all sleepy-warm, with his brother’s hand around the back of his head. Fox always carries them like this, him and Boba, sometimes at the same time.</p><p>They reach the First Batch rooms far faster than Two managed to leave them, benefitting from Fox’s far longer legs. After all, Two is a Little, and Fox is a proper Cadet now. Fox knocks, but doesn’t wait for an answer.</p><p>Fox always follows the Sense even when he doesn’t know it.</p><p>Beside Sal tugging the blanket over his head none of the other batchers react to their entrance, but Nines knows they’ve come in. His breath is hitching, broken, chest shaking. He is several shades too pale to be in good health, as Doc calls it. “He’s sick, Fox.”</p><p>“I know, kid,” his brother answers. He sets Two onto the bed at Nines’ knee level, but the Sense encourages him to crawl up. As Fox leans over Nines’ head, hands moving quick and confident even though he’s only twelve, he can feel the Sense thickening with anger and – what had Doc called that other emotion, the clinging one? Possessive, that was it. Fox is possessive of his brothers and his family, which is why Two knows he’s the one who will be able to help Nines get better. Nines and the other First Batchers are almost like buire, but Doc and Jan’buir are Two’s proper buire.</p><p>Nines groans, pained. “Two? Fox?”</p><p>“Here, Nines,” he answers, pressing a tiny hand to Nines’ cheek. That’s what Doc and Nines and Fox do for him, when he’s stressed or sick, so that’s what he does for them too. Doc gets sick more often than his brothers do, though, so Two is more used to just finding someone to look after sick people than he is actually helping. Doc doesn’t like him seeing him sick, and he really doesn’t like when he gets sick himself because he wouldn’t do as he was told.</p><p>Up on another bunk, one of them shifts around. Sal murmurs out, and ’67 answers tiredly. Two waves, knowing they can see him.</p><p>“Two?”</p><p>“Mhm!”</p><p>Fox looks between him and Nines. “Can you still feel him in the Sense?”</p><p>He nods.</p><p>“Can you feel his life through it?”</p><p>“I can feel everyone’s,” Two answers, proud. He’s even been practicing, tracking Doc and Jan’buir and Nines across the complex. Even Fox can’t hide from the Sense.</p><p>Fox nods, then crouches in front of him, amber eyes studying his browner ones. “I need you to find Nines, okay? Then you have to pull him home, using the Sense.” His hands are so much bigger than Two’s that both of Two’s are completely covered by one of his ori’vod’s.</p><p>“I can do that,” he promises, finding the long threads of Nines’ spirit. It’s trying to float away like a ghost or dust in the air, but he won’t let it – the Sense loops out of him and around the bubble of his brother. The other First Batch are in his senses too, and right beside his own sparking Sense-presence is Fox burning and smouldering like a fire, like the fire Doc had showed when he put the oil in water. There’s all the other sparks, and Boba, and Doc and Jan’buir in their offices, but he ignores the urge to go dancing down to them and focuses.</p><p>Nines is too important for him to mess this up. Pinning down his life-mark is like trying to catch rain in his hands when Doc takes him and Boba outside, but he has what Doc calls being Fett Shabuir Atin’la, so he makes it work. Carefully, he winds strands of his own strength through Nines’ sick body, using himself to clear out the sick-black and guide Nines’ own soul into his body.</p><p>It’s exhausting, but Fox places a hand on his head and talks to him until it works, watching, always watching, and it feels like being wrapped in fire. “You’re doing so good, Two,” he praises.</p><p>Finally he knows that Nines is tied tight, and there’s shreds of his own soul there to stop it floating away again into the Manda, and he collapses against Fox who picks him up. Just a little sleep, to make sure he doesn’t exhaust himself like he did that time he healed Boba when they got sick together.</p>
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